Manual vacuum aspiration of molar pregnancy achieves similar outcomes to electric vacuum aspiration, although it may lead to a lower incidence of uterine synechia, according to a paper published in the April edition of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
While electric vacuum aspiration of molar pregnancy is the dominant technique in North America, in other parts of the world, such as Brazil, manual vacuum aspiration is far more commonly used.
In a retrospective cohort study, researchers looked at outcomes for 1,727 patients with molar pregnancy; 1,206 of these patients underwent electric vacuum aspiration, and 521 underwent manual vacuum aspiration.
Patients who underwent electric vacuum aspiration had significantly shorter operative times (25.3 minutes vs. 34.2 minutes; P less than .001) and showed a greater drop in hemoglobin levels after evacuation (–0.3 g/dL vs. –0.19 g/dL; P less than .001), compared with those who underwent manual vacuum aspiration.